Tag: Gentleness

When we fall down

Karl Duffy1 Comment

We are often conscious of our failings and our lack of ability to do some of the things which we have to do. This can cause confusion and doubts in our mind. Sometimes we just have to sit with that. Mindfulness does not mean calmness. Being aware of our confusion is also mindfulness. We work with each moment as it is, even those we would probably prefer not to have.

Sometimes too we stumble and fall. Things can get too hard for us. In those moments we start over, trying not to add any judgement to the event, just being gentle with ourselves.

A monk looking for some guidance and encouragement went to Abba Sisoius and asked:

“What am I to do since I have fallen?” The Abba replied “Get up”

“I did get up but I fell again.” “Get up again.”

“I did, but I must admit that I fell once again. What should I do?”

“Do not fall down without getting back up”.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers

When different worlds collide

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When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one out by the other;

regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is complex.

Marguerite Yourcenar

I’m serious…

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There is always the risk that people take the inner life with a little bit too much solemnity. Two quotes on this from quite different sources:

Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness.  Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

G. K Chesterson

One of the big problems in meditation is that we can take ourselves too seriously. We can see ourselves as religious people dedicated towards serious things, such as realising truth. We feel important; we are not just frivolous or ordinary people, going about our lives, just going shopping in the supermarket and watching television. Of course this seriousness has advantages; it might encourage us to give up foolish activities for more serious ones. But the process can lead to arrogance and conceit: a sense of being someone who has special mission or some goal of helping people, or of being exceptional in some way… This conceit, this arrogance of our human state is a problem that has been going on since Adam and Eve, or since Lucifer was thrown out of heaven. It’s a kind of pride that can make human beings lose all perspective; so we need humour to point to the absurdity of our self-obsession.

Ajahn Sumedho

The monsters that scare us

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It is striking how much of our life is tinged with fear. We all have fears inside ourselves, monsters and dragons that raise their heads from time to time. When they show themselves we can default to a smaller, less competent version of ourselves and feel that we are not capable of achieving anything.

However, as Rilke’s extraordinary text tells us, when we turn towards our fears many of them dissolve. The things that frightens us can actually help us grow. Running from them ultimately is running from a place of real grace. That which is most alien will become our friend. The very difficulties become our path of growth.

We, however are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if we could only arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Sunday Quote: weakness

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We all are bruised reeds, whether our bruises are visible or not.  The compassionate life is the life in which we believe that strength is hidden in weakness and that true community is a fellowship of the weak

Henri Nouwen

An evening prayer

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May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams,
Possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.

John O’Donoghue, May the light of your soul gude you